Oscar Taylor-Kent

Oscar Taylor-Kent is a console-first games editor who focuses on character action, JRPGs, survival horror, and story-led games, blending magazine-honed expertise with enthusiast criticism and practical service coverage. His work at GamesRadar+ centres on deep dives into PlayStation and broader console ecosystems, paired with features that spotlight cult projects and fan-driven narratives alongside reviews and guides for major releases. Across recent writing, he balances a clear affection for demanding, expressive games with a willingness to question platform strategy, monetisation, and the way long-running series evolve.

Console roots and GamesRadar+ remit

Taylor-Kent is Games Editor at GamesRadar+, a role he has held since joining the masthead in 2024. He brings years of experience from Official PlayStation Magazine and its successor PLAY, where he progressed into an editorial leadership role and helped steer the long-standing console magazine through its rebrand.

That background gives him a long view on generational shifts in console hardware, flagship series, and the culture around platform loyalty, which now informs his commissioning and writing on “capital G” games for a digital audience.

Before arriving at GamesRadar+, he wrote across specialist games magazines and websites covering console, PC, and genre media, contributing to titles focused on games, sci-fi, and broader entertainment. This portfolio means he treats games not only as products but as part of a wider media landscape, with cross-references to anime, manga, and genre storytelling appearing in his biographical notes and in features on narrative-heavy releases. At GamesRadar+, that multi-disciplinary perspective underpins coverage that moves easily between platform strategy pieces, anniversary opinions, and hands-on assessments of new and upcoming titles.

JRPGs, visual novels, and story-led games

Taylor-Kent’s beat includes a strong emphasis on RPGs, mysteries, and narrative games, with his author bio foregrounding a particular affinity for JRPGs and visual novels. That interest surfaces in features like his profile of developers “basically making their own Danganronpa” after starting from “100% a fan game,” where he traces how fan devotion, legal constraints, and narrative ambition reshape a project into a legally distinct commercial release. He also covers new Final Fantasy projects, including a recent article on Final Fantasy Resonance that weighs how an almost ideal JRPG concept is complicated by its ties to Square Enix’s mobile ecosystem, signalling a focus on how business models intersect with story-driven design.

Across these pieces, he treats story structure, characterisation, and pacing as core to his analysis, not an afterthought to mechanics. His JRPG and visual novel coverage often highlights the emotional tenor and thematic concerns of a game, while still engaging with system depth and combat design that matter to genre fans.

That combination makes him suited to pitches that need both narrative framing and fluency in the mechanical expectations of series like Final Fantasy or Danganronpa-style adventure games.

Character action, survival horror, and cult projects

Taylor-Kent’s writing consistently returns to high-intensity, mechanically demanding games, described in his bios as “character action” titles and reflected in references to dishing out “deadly combos in Ninja Gaiden 4.” He leans into this taste in coverage that praises expressive combat systems and stylish play, treating them as a key part of why certain action games earn long-term loyalty. At the same time, he pays close attention to survival horror, singling out The Sinking City 2 as his “Silent Hill-loving brain’s new survival horror obsession” and unpacking how atmosphere, investigative structure, and psychological tension contribute to its appeal.

His interest in offbeat, cult-leaning projects is evident in features on 1666: Amsterdam, a “witchy body-hopper” from the creator of Assassin’s Creed that he argues has more in common with Hitman than with its creator’s earlier stealth series.

In such pieces, he positions games within a lineage of genre experiments, comparing new work to touchstones in stealth, horror, and action to explain what feels familiar and what feels distinct. This approach allows him to champion projects that might otherwise be niche, clarifying for readers why a body-swapping historical thriller or a Lovecraftian detective sequel warrants attention beyond core fans.

Platform coverage, reviews, and service journalism

Alongside features, Taylor-Kent handles platform-focused coverage and opinion pieces that examine how console makers manage their ecosystems over time. His article on threats to close PS3 and Vita digital stores revisits an earlier player revolt and foregrounds the perspective of “gamers and collectors,” framing store closures as a “hard pill to swallow” and linking preservation issues to community trust and long-term value.

He also writes anniversary and retrospective opinions, such as a ten-year look at Uncharted 4 that casts the game as an “antidote to overly bleak and serious adventuring” and argues for the place of “popcorn gaming” amid grimmer blockbuster narratives.

Taylor-Kent is an active reviewer, contributing critiques of major releases like Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced and Elden Ring that balance mechanical analysis with world-building and tone.

His Elden Ring review for a sister outlet describes how the open-world structure reconfigures the Soulsborne formula, while still drilling into combat, exploration, and difficulty in terms that speak to series veterans. On GamesRadar+, he supplements this critic’s voice with service pieces: lists of the best games to play in 2026, guides to Roblox-style experiences and their redemption codes, and update explainers for live titles such as Dead by Daylight.

That mix of opinion, review, and hands-on guidance makes his byline a fit for stories that need both contextualisation and concrete information on how players engage with games over time.